


Said it Three Times

by PoorUnfortunateSoul



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bisexual Lance (Voltron), Bloody Mary References, Character Death, Character Turned Into a Ghost, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Gay Keith (Voltron), Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Insecure Lance (Voltron), Keith and Shiro are Siblings, Lance (Voltron) Has Anxiety, M/M, Magic, Magic-Users, Minor Character Death, Pining Lance (Voltron), Supernatural Elements, Witch Curses, but he's a ghost so, he's still there, strictly for plot convenience and not because i hate sheith i promise
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-23
Updated: 2018-06-11
Packaged: 2019-04-26 18:17:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14407770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PoorUnfortunateSoul/pseuds/PoorUnfortunateSoul
Summary: "We don't know what will happen if you break the curse.""When," Lance corrects, and Keith couldn't look less amused if he tried. "And it doesn't matter. As long you're free from this stupid curse... it's all that matters. You're all that matters."Keith doesn't say anything. He just presses his hand against his side of the mirror, and Lance does the same to his.______________________After being tricked into a game of Bloody Mary, Lance finds himself obsessed with seeing the witch from the mirror again. What felt like a fun kids game, opens up a world of magic and danger that Lance had no idea existed, and maybe he was better off not knowing about. With the help of his childhood friends, and few new ones, Lance delves in head first to break the mirror witch's curse, even if it means never seeing him again.





	1. Violet

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry about this one.

"Said your name into a mirror three times,

Said it three times, 

Said it three times." 

\- Pvris, Mirrors

 

 

Lance starts believing in ghosts when he is thirteen. He lives in small neighborhood, and his friend pool consists of the two other kids who live on the street - Katie - or, as they called her, Pidge - and Hunk. Hunk is the same age as Lance, and his loud mouth gets the quieter of the two in trouble with him a few times. Pidge is two years under them, but while every other middle schooler found elementary school kids annoying, Lance and Hunk made an exception for Pidge.

They couldn’t remember a time before they were friends, and like all long-time friends, couldn’t remember when they’d made the switch from acquaintances to the people they tell everything to. Their entire childhoods were spent together, so it came as no surprise that Lance’s first ghost experience would happen in their presence.

“Can’t we play something else?” Hunk asks, watching Pidge’s bathroom wearily.

Pidge pushes her glasses up with a pointer finger, ready to delve into an explanation of why they have to play ghost games on Halloween night so air tight even Lance, who argues just for the sake of arguing, couldn’t even disagree with her. However, Lance gets straight to the point.

“It’s _Halloween_ , Hunk. The whole point of the day is to get scared!” Lance says.

“Have you ever considered,” Hunk says, putting his hands in front of him in an ‘I surrender’ gesture, “and I’m just putting it out there, that maybe the night is about us going out in costumes and getting free candy?”

Lance seems to consider this. Pidge jumps in before Hunk can change Lance’s mind, because she’ll be damned if she let’s Hunk ruin all of her careful planning of all the spooks they’re going to experience tonight.

“What are we, ten?” Pidge deadpans.

“You’re like, eleven,” Hunk argues, but Pidge knows that she only has to convince one of them.

Their group works on majority rules, unless someone hard vetoes it. The veto has to be for extreme, emotionally damaging reasons, so they’ve never really used it. It’s a safety net, so Pidge isn’t worried about it. If she only has to convince one of them, she’s going to convince the easiest person to sway. And the easiest person to sway when it comes to matters of pride, is...

“I’m not ten!” Lance argues.

Hunk’s face falls and Pidge sends a smirk his way. They both know she’s won.

“Mm, maybe not ten,” Pidge says, evil grin creeping up on her small face, “but a chicken, for sure.”

“I’m not a chicken!” 

Hunk let’s out a long, suffering sigh and flops back onto the pile of stuffed animals in the corner of Pidge’s room. They’re not going out for candy tonight.

“Prove it,” Pidge demands, and Lance gets up off of the floor. 

“Fine! I’ll do it first!” Lance says, childishly stomping a foot on the old grape juice stain he made when he knocked over his cup after falling asleep during one of their movie marathons.

Pidge’s mom made him use a sippy cup after that, even to this day.

“Fine,” Pidge agrees, inwardly first pumping. 

Lance walks out into the hallway then, but freezes at the bathroom door. Hunk turns to look at him from his spot on the floor, and Pidge gives a disappointed huff.

However, Lance just walks back to Pidge’s room and asks, “How do I do this again?” 

Hunk groans and pushes himself further back into the stuffed animals. Pidge grins wickedly, and gestures for Lance to sit back down again. He does, and Pidge stands up on her bed. She rests one hand flat against the ceiling to help keep her balance as she lectures. 

“You’ve never played Bloody Mary before?” she asks. Lance and Hunk both shakes their head no. “Okay, well, quick myth busting here - Bloody Mary isn’t actually supposed to be the Queen Mary. She’s a witch some lady claimed to see in her mirror that showed her the face of her husband.” 

“Before or after she married?” Hunk asks, undeniably intrigued now. 

“Before she even _met_ him,” Pidge says, “and supposedly, young girls all over started doing it. You’d either see the guy you were supposed to marry, or you’d see a skull.”

Lance raises his hand, and Pidge nods at him. 

“What’s the skull mean?”

“That you’ll die before you get the chance to marry anyone.”

“Oh, ouch,” Lance says.

Hunk nods in agreement.

“Anyways, Mary supposedly was someone who was actually _alive_ once, and wasn’t actually a witch. Her family pissed off a witch, and the witch cursed her for revenge. Apparently, the witch’s daughter called upon her, and when Mary found out who she was, she snapped. Burst through the mirror and killed the girl. She dragged her spirit to the mirror with her, and it broke her curse. The witch’s daughter took over the Bloody Mary title.”

“So Bloody Mary isn’t _actually_ Mary?” Lance asks.

Pidge shakes her head.

“The name is more of a place holder, than anything.”

Lance nods, taking it in.

“Is the witch like, evil?” Hunk asks.

“I guess you could say that,” Pidge agrees, “I mean, Mary found out that the witch’s daughter had carried on her mother’s legacy and cursed half of the village. Mary was crowned as a hero when she returned, having slain the witch.”

“Oh, great, so now I’m supposed to summon an evil and pissed off _witch_?” Lance demands.

Pidge glances at him, and his face is completely white. 

“Not unless you’re chicken,” she drawls, and Lance’s chest puffs immediately.

Pidge smirks. _Too easy._

“Fine,” Lance says, following their script. “What do I have to do?”

Pidge drops down onto her knees, and places her hands out beside herself to keep steady. Lance leans forward in anticipation.

“You close your eyes, spin around in a circle three times, while saying Bloody Mary.” 

“Sounds easy enough,” Lance says, standing up again.

 Hunk watches them walk into the hallway lazily, from his spot on the floor. Pidge’s family has one of those over the top bathrooms with a huge tub that could probably fit all three of them at once, and a plush carpet across the tile that Hunk has always envied. His parents leave the cold tile bare.

Pidge grabs a lighter from the sink’s counter and lights a few of the candles surrounding the sink.

“You guys don’t usually keep candles in here, do you?” Lance asks.

Pidge shakes her head.

“Nah, I snatched them all from my mom’s collection when they left for their date night.”

“Ah.”

Pidge puts the lighter back after lighting all of the candles, and turns to Lance.

“Remember, three turns, three chants, Hunk and I will be down the hall if you need something. Got it?”

Lance nods. Pidge pats his back before snapping off the lights and shutting the door. Lance takes a shaky breath and turns to the mirror.

The mirror is on the larger side, and has small decretive flower stickers around it. There’s a few stickers of varies kid show characters Lance can vaguely remember scattered around with no pattern to it that he and Pidge put up one day when Hunk was sick. He’s still their impulse control.

“Okay, okay,” Lance says, hugging his arms to his chest to self soothe. “I can do this.”

 He closes his eyes a second to steel his nerves. He exhales slowly and opens his eyes.

“Okay,” he says again, shaking his hands out. He closes his eyes again, and begins to turn. “Bloody Mary… Bloody Mary…. Bloody Mary….”

Lance squeezes his eyes tight before snapping them open. He scans the mirror with the upmost attention, but nothing happens. He relaxes the tension in his body, and lets out a relieved _‘whoosh_ ’ of air.

Just before he can relax fully, the candles suddenly snuff themselves out. Chuckling nervously, Lance tries to rationalize with himself. He _did_ just sigh - surely it was his breath that put them out.

The mirror in front of him shatters before he can convince himself fully. He shrieks and ducks down onto the floor, head between his knees to shield his face from the glass. The cabinets beneath the sinks fly open, and whack him on the knees. Too stunned and afraid to do much else, Lance lets himself fall flat on his butt.

The whole room comes alive around him. The candles flick themselves off and on like a light, the cabinets clack open and closed, the sink runs and overflows. The bathtub floods at an alarming rate, and the bottle of hand soap that smells overwhelmingly of peppermint knocks Lance in the forehead. 

Lance opens his mouth, maybe to scream, maybe to call for help, he isn’t sure, but no sound will come out. His heart thuds so loudly in his chest that it’s all his ears can hear, apart from the wind rushing through the room. He doesn’t remember opening the bathroom window, but the curtains flutter against his cheek, letting him catch a glimpse at the moon. He supposes that death in moonlight wouldn’t be so bad, if it weren’t at the hands of a vengeful and angry witch. 

He looks up at where the mirror was, and his blood turns to ice. Translucent violet eyes stare back at him, and Lance is finally able to make his first noise - a pitiful whine. The eyes have no whites to them, there’s just violet and black. Something like despair settles in his bones, and Lance can’t tell if it’s the fear of death or some trick the witch has pulled on him.

The longer he looks, the more features appear. A shaggy mop of black hair that highlights just how pale the ghost is. Nice cheekbones, and a strong jaw, topped of with a slim frame. He would almost dare to call the witch attractive, and is throughly disgusted with himself - this thing is about to _kill_ him!

The witch pulls itself from the mirror’s lonely frame, and Lance is finally able to fully shriek. He puts his face in his hands, and his knees to his chest.

“Please, no,” Lance whimpers, “I don’t want to die. I don’t, I don’t.”

The witch clamps a hand on his shoulder, and shudder runs through his body. The hand is _cold_ , and it feels like death. It feels like endless misery, and he can’t stand it.

“I’m sorry,” the witch says, and it gives Lance a pause. The witch curses, and he chances a look at it’s - his? - face up close. The whites had returned to his eyes, and they’ve settled on a more pleasing and calm violet. “Shit. I’m not here to kill you, I promise.”

“You’re not?” Lance all but whimpers.

The witch shakes his head.

“No, it’s my job to scare you, not kill you.”

“Mission accomplished,” Lance says, offering a weak smile.

The witch frowns at him. He looks around the room, and with a jerk of his head, everything is back in its place. Even the mirror looks untouched.

 “A bit too accomplished, I think,” the witch says, surveying Lance’s current state. “I’m sorry. It’s my first night on the job - which part was a bit overboard, do you think?” 

Lance swallows harshly, hardly believing the situation in his in. Is a witch really asking him for scaring advice?

“Well, if it’s just your job to scare, I’d hold back on the whole mirror smashing thing. It’s potentially fatal.” 

The witch’s lips twitch to the side, considering Lance’s words carefully. Lance notices that his whole body is still tense, and tries to get it to relax. His heart still races, but he thinks that it’s more from the leftover adrenaline than an imminent fear of death.

“Noted,” he says, standing up. Then, awkwardly, “I’m sorry, again. I’ll be on my way now.”

He turns to the mirror and slips inside. Lance scurries to stand up, and without thinking, grabs the witch’s arm.

“What’s your name?” he breathes, and the witch seems to be surprised.

 He watches Lance, looking for something. 

Deciding that he’s fine with what he finds, he says, “Keith.”

Lance drops his arm.

“Not Mary?”

Keith rolls those violet eyes of his.

“No, not Mary. Do you know how many kids play Bloody Mary on a daily basis, let alone on Halloween night? No one could handle all of this on their own.”

The answer is so painfully human, that Lance finds himself to be disappointed. He’s not sure what he was expecting, but after everything that happened, he expected something more… supernatural.

Keith uses Lance’s silence to slip back into the mirror. He disappears with a small wave, and the rest of the tension in Lance’s body leaves. Curious, he places his palms against the mirror and pushes. Nothing happens, except for a few handprints that he’ll have to clean up.

Lance does a quick look around the room before exiting, making sure that the witch really did clean everything when he leaves. When he walks back into Pidge’s room, Hunk watches him with “I’m concerned” and “Are you okay?” plastered on his forehead.

“So,” Pidge asks, and she tries to sound nonchalant, but there’s mischief in her eyes, “how’d it go? I heard you scream.”

Lance thinks back, on the nice cheekbones and lovely violet eyes.

A bit dreamily, he says, “I think I’m in love.”


	2. Chapter 2

"I go searching through reflections for your outline,

but it's just mine,

but it's just mine." 

 

Lance looks for Keith in every reflective surface he can find for the next two weeks. He doesn’t know what it is about the witch that entranced him - Pidge even warned him that it might’ve been the witch’s intent in the first place, to force Lance to switch places with him. However, Lance doesn’t think so. The genuine worry in his eyes when he thought he’d given Lance a heart attack swayed him from being able to believe it.

So Lance used everything to try and find him. The mirror in his bathroom, the one in his room, a spoon, the kitchen counter, a desk at school; anything he could even vaguely see himself in, and he tried it. The witch never appeared again, and it was hard to hide his disappointment.

“Maybe he can only show up on Halloween?” Hunk suggests on one of their lunch breaks. 

Lance chews thoughtfully on a breadstick for a few seconds before shaking his head.

“I don’t think so,” he says, frowning distastefully at the bread. It tastes and feels like cardboard. “He said something about the amount of kids that play Bloody Mary, let alone the number of kids that play it on Halloween.”

Hunk looks like he wants to tell Lance to just let it go, but they’ve already had that conversation a few times now. He knows how his friend gets when he has crushes, and while he’s always known he can get a bit crazy, Hunk never thought he’d be crazy enough to fall for a _blood thirsty witch._ Still, there’s no reasoning with Lance when he’s like this about someone. It’s one of his weirdly endearing traits he has, that you almost wish he didn’t.

Solely because watching Lance love with his whole heart and getting burned over and over again isn’t exactly Hunk’s favorite pastime. Lance is incredibly important to him, after all.

“Well, you also said that he said that there’s more than one of them that do that. Maybe your particular witch can only come out on Halloween.”

Lance hums, seeming to accept that proposition.

“Would be my luck,” he says.

 

———————

Lance is fourteen, and he sits in front of the mirror in his room on Halloween morning. He’s had today marked on his calendar ever since Hunk made the suggestion. He was worried that he’d forget about Keith by now, but he never did. Those striking violet eyes were always in the back of his mind, and he has tons of questions that he wants answered.

How did Keith become a mirror witch? Did he become a witch, or was he born one? Are all witches bad, or can there be good ones? Did his eyes become violet in death, or were they always that color? Are they that color because he’s a witch?

He tired asking Pidge, but she threatened to hack into his playstation and delete all of it’s data. Lance works _hard_ to finish those games, so he doesn’t push his luck.

Lance shakes out his hands, and says, “Bloody Mary… Bloody Mary… Bloody Mary…”

He cracks his left open the tinniest bit, but the reflection is still just his own. He reminds himself that it took a while for Keith to show up last time, and waits. And waits. And waits.

Before he knows it, and hour passes. Lance deflates in disappointment. He really wanted Hunk to be right.

Lance lays back on his carpet, and stares at the glowing star stickers on his ceiling.

 _Maybe… maybe the ghost just didn’t like me?_ Lance thinks.

Keith had studied him a bit before even telling him his name. Maybe he has some kind of ghost power that let him tell if Lance was worth his time or not. It wouldn’t be the first time he hadn’t met someone’s standards. 

The ghost did look like he was a bit older than him. Maybe he just saw Lance as some stupid kid, playing a stupidly dangerous game on Halloween night, because he was too immature to realize that it was a bad idea.

Sighing, Lance pushes himself up by his elbows. He still has to go to school, after all.

 

——————-

 

Lance is fifteen when he stops mentioning Keith to his friends. Their concern turned to annoyance a long time ago, and Lance is pretty sure that they never believed that Keith exists in the first place.

He can’t really blame them. After all, both Hunk and Pidge went in after him, and neither one of them had the same terrifying experience. Pidge didn’t see anything, and Hunk spooked himself by knocking over the soap. They weren’t given a reason to believe him, and Lance understands that.

He tries to take an interest in the real people around him, but he can’t find anyone that makes him forget those vibrant purple eyes. No one else’s features are so outlandish that they strike him as unique. He knows it isn’t a good standard to have, but he can’t help it. The mirror witch was the most beautiful person he’s ever seen.

 

_______________

 

Lance is sixteen when he starts to think that maybe he didn’t see the witch after all. He never sees him again, despite the fact that he’s spent years looking. Hell, he even tries once in the reflection of the old, beat up car his parents give him after he passes his driver’s test, and gets nothing in return.

He doesn’t know _how_ he made up such a vivid memory, but he must’ve. There’s no evidence of it happening, and it’s not like something else supernatural happens to him. If mirror witches do exist, than so does every other legend or fairytale, but that’s not realistic. If all that did exist, there’d be more than the ramblings of madmen to attest for it.

It makes more sense to think that it never even happened, than to think that it did.

 

________________

 

Lance is seventeen when he gives up entirely. He lets himself have one more go in the full-length mirror of his bedroom, but nothing happens. He decides then and there to stop looking.

He has a girlfriend now, after all. And her eyes are purple, but they are a striking deep blue. She’s considerate and caring, and Lance wants to give this his all, and he can’t do that if he’s still hung up on some mirror witch that his imagination created.

So, he does what every rational person would do, and lets it go. Pidge and Hunk would be proud.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about this one.

"Darlin', don't be so shy,

I'll see you at midnight." 

 

Lance has never liked hospitals. There’s too much crushed hope, desperation and even thinking about death causes anxiety for him. However, he doesn’t think he’s ever hated hospitals as much as he does today.

He got the call from his brother during his first class. Lance didn’t know what to expect when Luis called him, but it wasn’t this.

He quickly spots Veronica in the waiting room, and hurries over to her.

“How are they?” Lance asks, before his sister can even say hello.

Veronica takes a steadying breath, and grips Lance’s hands in hers. She gives them a reassuring squeeze.

“I don’t know,” she says, honestly. “Luis just went to talk to a doctor, but he hasn’t come back yet.”

Lance visibly deflates, and Veronica squeezes his hands again. That was not the news he was hoping for.

“What happened?” Lance asks.

His sister lets go of his left hand, to pat the seat next to her. Weary, Lance sits down.

“There was a car accident,” Veronica says. “It backed up the entire highway. Some drunk driver swerved into their lane, and crashed a car right in front of them. Dad couldn’t stop in time, and they ended up in the middle of it.”

Lance clenches his fists, and Veronica rubs his shoulder.

“And the others?” Lance asks, glancing up at her.

She sighs, and looks down at the floor.

“Dead on impact,” she whispers, and Lances squeezes his eyes shut. “But mom and dad weren’t; there’s still hope, Lance.”

He knows that Veronica is just playing the older sister role. It’s her job to sooth the younger siblings, and she’s already got Marco calmed down enough to sleep. (Lance nearly trampled the lump on the floor trying to get to Veronica). But, God, he wishes she wouldn’t.

Lance puts his head in his hands, and tries to steady his breathing. Veronica keeps a calming rhythm going in her back rubbing, before breaking it up to pull Lance into a side-hug. He sniffs and leans against her.

“How long ago did Luis go get a doctor?” Lance asks.

“About a minuet before you got here,” Veronica answers.

Lance nods. Marco stirs on the floor, and Veronica and Lance turn to look at him.

“How is he?” Lance asks, gesturing to the baby of the family.

“About as well as the rest of us,” she says, and yeah, Lance supposes that’s fair.

He’s ran out of things to ask, and Veronica seems to be out of her standard older sibling comfort. They lapse into a comfortable silence, and Lance tries not to let himself spiral.

He can’t help it, though. His mom is so excited for him to graduate next year, marking her third child to go to college. She and his dad never had the chance too, so they never thought they’d be able to put one kid through college, let alone three. He can’t wait to make her proud, and see her smiling face in the crowd when he walks across the stage.

His dad has had a cake picked out for celebrating for months now, despite the fact that Lance still has three semesters left. He’s been testing different recipes, and baking non-stop. He can’t imagine not eating the cake his father made, or his see his mother’s face in the crowd.

It’s a very real possibility now, and the very thought of it has him sobbing.

“It’s okay,” Veronica soothes softly, “It’s all going to be okay.”

 

____________________

 

Everything is very, very not okay. Lance bites his nails, watching all the machines whirl and twirl, trying to keep their parents alive through a window.

The doctor is explaining something to Luis and Veronica, but Lance’s brain blanked out at “life-support.” All of Veronica’s reassuring and comforting wouldn’t have prepared him for this.

The doctor leaves, and Lance turns to Luis to get a quick rundown of the situation. He catches Lance’s look, and Lance knows that it has to be bad if Luis isn’t immediately launching into his ‘you need to pay attention’ lecture.

“It’s bad, Lance,” Luis says, and Lance bounces on the balls of his feet anxiously. “They had to put them into a medically induced coma. There’s a lot of brain damage, and they think the best option here is to pull the plug.”

Veronica sobs into her hands, and Lance heart stops.

“No,” he whispers, and Luis nods.

“We have to, Lance,” Veronica says, voice wavering.

“Even if they did wake up, they wouldn’t be themselves. They wouldn’t be able to function on their own. It’s no way to live,” Luis adds on.

“No,” Lance repeats, and Veronica turns away from him. “No! No, they can’t die, dad needs to bake my cake and mom needs to see me graduate, and Marco hasn’t even finished high school yet! He has four months left, and they were so excited!”

“We know,” Luis says, and Veronica pulls Lance into a hug that he feels to numb to respond to. “We know, Lance.”

“It’s not fair!” Lance argues, “Dad never drove drunk! Why he should have to pay for what someone else did?!”

Luis awkwardly avoids eye-contact with an elderly lady that walks past them. Veronica hugs him tighter. Lance shakes off the urge to shove her off.

“I’m sorry, Lance,” Luis says, “but it’s my decision, and I already gave them the go ahead. We all get our goodbyes, and then it’s over.”

Lance doesn’t think he’s ever felt this betrayed in his life.

“They’re our _parents_ ,” Lance stresses.

Veronica makes a miserable noise from where her face is pressed against Lance’s chest.

“I’m going to go wake up Marco,” Luis says, leaving them in the hallway.

Veronica lets go of him, and sits down on the benchoutside of their parent’s room.

“Fuck!” Lance says, kicking a near-by trashcan. “This isn’t fair! They deserve a fucking chance, why can’t Luis see that?”

“He’s just doing what’s best for them, Lance,” Veronica says, and Lance whirls around to face her.

“What’s best for them?! What’s best for them is to give them a chance to see everything they were looking forward too! Weren’t you the one who told me there’s still hope?” Lance demands, and Veronica visibility flinches.

It softens Lance around the edges, and all of the anger fades to exhaustion. He sits on the bench next to Veronica, before flopping over into her lap.

“It’s not fair,” he repeats, tears rolling down his cheeks.

“I know, Lancey,” Veronica says. “I know.”

 

 

___________

 

Lance takes his anger out on his apartment when he gets home. The first victim is his bookshelf. He shoves it from its place by the wall, and tips it forward. Next are the pictures on the wall, that this mother helped him pick out when he complained about the living room being too plain.

He smashes them all onto the ground, with different sounds of sobbing escaping him every few moments. He steps on a piece of glass, but he doesn’t really feel it. He punches the glass doors of the TV stand, screams ripping from his throat.

“He didn’t even give them a chance!” Lance yells at no one, smashing a vase on the ground.

He collapses on the couch behind him, and sobs into his hands. His chest heaves, and his body aches. Lance doesn’t think that he’s felt grief with his entire body before. Everything hurts, and he wants it to stop, but he knows that it won’t. The least he can do is try to clean his apartment.

Lance heaves a sigh, and forces himself to stand up. He has to keep moving, or he’s going to stay still and spiral. He can’t spiral. He promised Veronica he wouldn’t spiral, when he turned down her offer to sleep on her floor.

He cleans quietly, a huge contrast the loud noise he made when he got home. He’s thankful that it’s only three, and that the people living under and around him all work 9 to 5’s. No one heard his outburst. Probably.

Lance sweeps the glass away with a broom, and stops short in front of the mirror attached to his bedroom door. He stares at it, contemplating, before slowly shutting his eyes.

“Bloody Mary… Bloody Mary… Bloody Mary…”

His opens his eyes, and nearly jumps out of his skin when he meets a pair vibrant, violet eyes staring back at him.


	4. Chapter 4

"I'll wait to see you again."

 

“Your apartment is a mess,” is the first thing that the mirror witch says, and it startles Lance so much that he laughs for the first time that day.

The laughter subsides, and he takes a moment to look at Keith. He looks faded around the edges, like he’s not completely there. Lance wonders if his mind is playing tricks on him, but he decides that he doesn’t care. It’s a welcome distraction from what’s going on at the hospital right now.

Before he can focus on that, he forces back to the mirror witch. Aside from looking a little less real, he’s exactly as Lance remembers: vibrant violet eyes, cheekbones to die for, out of style but still somehow charming hairstyle.

“You’re real,” Lance says, and Keith rolls his eyes.

The mirror witch crosses his arms, and gazes lazily around the apartment. Even though he’s not looking with a more piercing gaze, Lance shifts his weight with insecurity. He should’ve finished cleaning before calling for the witch.

“In my defense, I thought you wouldn’t show,” Lance says, raising his hands in an “I surrender” motion.

The statement makes the witch look almost… guilty? Why would Keith look guilty? Lance frowns. The witch’s face quickly shifts back into indifference as he shrugs.

“Kids to scare, graveyards to haunt,” the witch says. “You know how it is.”

Lance definitely does _not_ know how it is. He’s still very much alive, thank you. Unlike his…

“Why are your eyes purple?” Lance blurts out, before he lets his mind go down that path.

Keith looks taken aback for a moment, before lifting a shoulder.

“I don’t know; same reason yours are blue, I guess? Genetics, probably.”

Lance nods.

“So, are all witch’s eyes purple, or is that just you and your family?”

Keith raises an eyebrow.

“You have a ghost in front of you, and all you want to know about is my eye color?”

Lance realizes that this is a good point. He also takes note that Keith calls himself a ghost and not a witch. He furrows his eyebrows.

“Wait, ghost? Not a witch?”

“As far as I know.”

Huh. Lance wonders if Pidge knows that ghosts are involved in her favorite myth. Probably not, considering Lance had done some extensive research after seeing Keith for the first time, and he didn’t even know about the ghost part. He feels like it’s his duty as a best friend to tell her, but he also doesn’t think that she’d find it very amusing that he’s back on the Keith train. She and Hunk both think he’s moved on, and they’re less concerned that way.

He’s not oblivious enough to know how’d it look, jumping back onto the ‘he’s totally real’ train just after his parents died. To be fair, Lance isn’t convinced that is real either.

“I have another question,” Lance says, and Keith doesn’t look very surprised. “Why did you only appear to me? Why not Hunk and Pidge?”

The mirror witch makes a face at the names, like he doesn’t know who Lance is talking about. Which is fair, since he never appeared in front of them.

“It’s part of the job,” the witch says eventually. Maybe Lance should stop thinking of Keith as the ‘mirror witch’ since ‘mirror ghost’ seems to be more accurate now. Oh, well. Mirror witch sounds better. “We appear in front of enough people that it keeps the myth going, but appearing in front of every person that played the game would be dangerous.”

Lance perks up at that.

“Dangerous? How so?”

Keith shifts uncomfortably, like he’s said something he shouldn’t have.

“It just would be,” he says, and Lance decides to drop it.

Usually, he’d push until he gets every gritty detail. However, the mirror witch has proven to be very good at hide and seek, and Lance really doesn’t want to be alone right now.

“How did you become apart of the Bloody Mary myth?” Lance asks, pressing a palm to the glass.

Keith’s eyes flick down to it, and he hesitantly fits his hand over the reflection of Lance’s. Lance’s eyes widen when his hand instantly becomes cold. So that part of ghosts is true. He wonders how much of what humans say about ghosts are true, and which parts would make the mirror witch roll his pretty eyes.

“It’s a punishment,” the witch says, seemingly transfixed on how much bigger Lance’s hand is compared to his own.

Lance wants to know if Keith can feel his hand touching his too, or if his brain is making up the calloused feeling, but the witch’s answer makes him stay focused.

“A punishment?” Lance echoes, searching Keith’s face. “I can’t imagine you needing to be punished for anything, considering how our first meeting went.”

Keith’s mouth twitches like he might smile, but his face never quite gets there. Lance really, _really_ wants to see the mirror witch smile.

“I did something really bad when I was alive, so I’m stuck like this now. Screwed myself over even worse after I broke a ghost rule on my first day of being dead.”

Lance thinks back on that first meeting. He remembers how gentle Keith had been after the scaring, and cracks a smile when Keith’s voice asking him what was too scary echoes in his thoughts.

“Ghosts have rules?” Lance asks, and Keith nods. “Huh.”

The mirror witch drops his hand from the mirror, and Lance follows suit. The warmth returning to his hand is almost a disappointment.

“Hey, Keith?” Lance asks, looking down, voice small. The witch makes an inquisitive sound. “Is being dead… does being dead suck?”

The mirror witch sighs, and Lance looks at up Keith. He gives him a small smile, and Lance’s heart slams against his ribcage. _God,_ the mirror witch is beautiful.

“No,” Keith says, “It doesn’t suck at all. It’s just like living, expect you have more times for things. And there’s less stress about money. Ghosts still have ambitions, and dreams and things they want to do. The only difference between life and death is that you’re guaranteed to do what you want. It’s a lot better than being alive, if I’m being honest. It’s just a little lonely, if you’re the first person to die.”

Lance aches, in both a good and bad way. Maybe, in a twisted way, fate was being kind when it took both his parents from him at the same time. He just wishes it would’ve waited. There was so much his parents wanted to see, here on Earth.

Lance doesn’t realize that he’s started full-on ugly sobbing again, until he meets Keith’s panic stricken expression. What an expression to see on such a young face. The thought crushes his heart, and makes his stomach ache. Keith couldn’t have been much older than him when he died. How much did he leave behind? How much does he miss?

How long has he been waiting for someone to come along to spend time with him? _Can_ he even be looking forward to that if this mirror thing is supposed to be a punishment? Will Keith be able to be happy in his after life?

His eyes flick to Keith’s, and he looks for any sense of happiness he can, but all he sees is concern. Feeling guilty, Lance rubs his snotty nose against the crook of his elbow.

“Sorry,” he says with a watery laugh. “I’m just… really overwhelmed with relief.”

Keith reaches forward like he’s trying to hug Lance through the mirror. It doesn’t reach him, of course, but the idea of it is endearing.

“Your parents are going to be fine, Lance,” Keith soothes in a gentle tone.

Lance doesn’t know how he knows. He doesn’t even think he’s ever told Keith his name. Still, the words are the most reassuring thing he’s heard all day.

“Thank you for humoring me,” Lance says, because he has to make sure that he gets his appreciation across, because he’s pretty sure the mirror witch is fading away. “Can I see you again?”

The witch hesitates a moment, before nodding slowly.

“Call for Keith Kogane, instead of Bloody Mary,” the witch says urgently, pressing his hands the glass. “And call at midnight. It’s when I have the most energy.”

Lance has no idea what that means, but he nods anyways since it’s seems important to the mirror witch that he do so. Keith nods in return, before disappearing all together.

Lance ends up staring back at his own reflection, and he winces. He’s as much as a mess ashis apartment. Not exactly how he wanted the pretty mirror witch to see him, but Keith didn’t seem to mind.

Sighing as loneliness creeps into his bones, Lance resumes cleaning his apartment. He really shouldn’t leave all the glass on the floor.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: This chapter is from Keith's POV. Please pay attention to the tags.

Keith remembers pulling the trigger. He remembers feeling everything, and then an overwhelming nothing. He’s pretty sure he did it; he’s pretty sure he’s died.

So, why is his body begging him to open his eyes? Why does he appear to be conscious at all? Keith frowns, and prepares himself for blinding white walls, a splitting headache and an overpowering sterile smell.

He opens his eyes, and all he sees is black. Keith squints, and wiggles his fingers and toes. He _seems_ to be in control of himself, but he still can’t see anything.

“It comes slowly,” a voice says from his left. He turns his head in the general direction of the voice.

“What?” he asks.

“Your senses,” the voice explains, “they come back slowly. Here, can you feel this?”

Keith waits, but nothing happens.

“Feel wha- _shit_ ,” he hisses, as a sudden pain makes itself known on his wrist.

The stranger obviously stepped on him. He cradles the wounded appendage to his chest, with a frown. The person could’ve done literally anything to make sure he could feel it, _why_ did they have to hurt him?

“Good,” they say, “that means your vision should return soon.”

Keith supposes that that is a good thing, if his racing heart is anything to go by. He’s never done well with darkness, and it’s making him panic a little.

“Where am I?” Keith asks, turning his head in the general direction of the voice.

They’re too his left, he knows that at least.

“The afterlife,” they say, voice dripping with amusement.

Keith has more questions, but he’s not sure if he wants the answers to them. Instead, he opens his eyes to test his vision again. There are bright lights above him, but no headache or sterile smell.

He guesses that means that the stranger hadn’t been lying. Keith must really be dead, since he isn’t in the hospital, and he isn’t anywhere near the incident. At least, he doesn’t think he is. Though, he had tried to do it as far away from home as possible, so his brother wouldn’t feel the lingering sting every time he passes his room. He was mindful enough of the whispered confession his brother gave him, of how much it still hurt years later to walk past their parents bedroom, knowing that it had been where their father died.

He’d driven almost a whole town over, to make sure not to taint any of his last living relative’s favorite places, so he might be near the next town for all he knows. Keith reaches a hand up to his temple, and even though it’s still prickling with a bit a numbness, he’s sure that no wound is hiding under his locks. Frowning, Keith glances around his surroundings.

He’d already figured out that he wasn’t in a bed; the ground is bit too hard to be, but it isn’t uncomfortable, either. However, he hadn’t thought that he’d be lying in the middle of a long hallways.

It looks like something out of a movie. The floor is marble, with a red carpet going down the center of it. There’s statues lining the left wall, and the details on them freaks Keith out a bit, if he’s honest. They almost look _too_ real. The stranger is leaning against one that looks exactly like Keith, grinning down at him with amusement.

He turns his head, and the other side is covered with mirrors, and almost all of them have a little kid on the other side. They all seem to be speaking to their mirrors. Keith turns back to the stranger, waiting patiently for an explanation.

“I’m Thace,” the stranger says, offering Keith his hand.

He takes it, and carefully stands up. His legs are still a bit numb, so it’s slow going, but Thace doesn’t seem to mind. 

“I’m -“

“Keith Kogan, twenty years old, the youngest of two boys, college drop-out with no idea what he wants to do in life, fears nothing more than letting his older brother down, knife fetishist-“

“Knife _what?”_

 _“ -_ anime lover, and depressed enough to blow his own brains out approximately 167 miles away from home.”

Keith crosses his arms over his chest.

“What, are you going to tell me my blood type too?” he snaps.

Thace doesn’t do anything about his snark, except keep that smile Keith is starting to hate on his face.

“Just letting know that I know everything about you, so spare me the sob story. Follow me,” he commands.

Thace begins walking, and doesn’t even turn back to make sure that Keith follows.

“Wasn’t gonna give it to you,” Keith mutters, but he trudges after him down the hall.

“So, to answer your earlier question: yes, this is the afterlife. Well, part of it, at least. Everyone ends up somewhere different depending on the life they lead, and everyone that commits suicide ends up here.”

Keith takes a moment to process that, before saying, “Does that mean you did too?”

Thace whips around to look at him with a warning glance. It’s a dark enough look that it makes Keith stop moving all together.

“Everyone that ends up here has committed suicide,” he repeats slowly, and Keith nods his head quickly.

No questions on that subject. Got it.

Satisfied with Keith’s silence, Thace continues their walk down the hall.

“Since we lived our lives in the most miserable way possible, we get to live out our afterlives doing the job everyone hates the most: protecting children from the witch.”

“The witch?” Keith asks, before he can think better of it.

However, he seems to be in the clear this time. Thace doesn’t look back to give him the scary look, at least.

“Yes, the witch,” Thace repeats, “Have you heard of Bloody Mary?”

Keith bobs his head. He’s pretty sure everyone his age has heard of Bloody Mary, especially in the town he lives - lived? - in. Supposedly, it used to be the village where Bloody Mary used to have her reign. Keith always thought it was some folk lore left over the 1900’s or something. Surely if witch’s did exist, the world would know about it, right?

Thace doesn’t seem like he’s kidding, though.

“Well she’s real,” Thace says, “but she’s been… controlled, I suppose, by this little program of ours. You see, Mary can only come if she’s summoned.”

“The chant,” Keith interrupts, but Thace looks impressed.

“Yes, the chant. I’m surprised you picked up on that. Anyways, the chant is actually a pretty powerful spell. Something her curser put in place, and before you ask, _yes_ , every curse spell has to have a loophole. It’s one huge downside of curse magic, which is why no one uses them anymore. I mean, what’s point in cursing someone if they can find the loophole? As I was saying, Mary can only come when you use the chant. However, if someone goes through the opening before her, it closes again. Our job is to go through all the openings the kids make, and do it before Mary even catches wind of it.”

“That sounds… complicated,” is the only thing Keith can think of to say.

Thace crosses his arms and gives him a wicked grin.

“Guess it’s a good thing that we’ve had decades to perfect it,” he says, and it makes Keith wonder how long he’s been dead. “Now, onto the rules. One, you scare them good. Scare them enough that they never do this again, but don’t give them psychological damage. You need to find a good balance. Two, don’t give them your full name. Just like Mary, ghosts are automatically summoned by the call of their full name three times, plus the image of said ghost in their head. The kids already know what you look like, and that already holds a bit of power. You’ll feel a pull when they think of you, but it’s weak enough that you can ignore it. Once they have your name, though, it’s all over. Three, don’t get attached to any of them. Sounds like an easy task, but getting Ghostly Attached is a hundred times easier than getting humanly attached.”

Keith nods, and slowly goes over it again in his head. Scare them, but not too much. Don’t tell them his full name. Don’t get Ghostly Attached… whatever that means.

“Got it?” Thace asks, and he makes a small noise of agreement. “Good.”

He gives him that wicked grin again and before he can react, Thace shoves him through the nearest mirror. Keith shrieks when the world around spins like being shoved in the washing machine, but it’s over as quickly as it started. He scowls at the darkness surrounding him. A little bit of a warning would’ve been nice.

Nothing surrounds him but a dark inky black, and a small mirror. There’s a little boy behind it, with brown hair and bright blue eyes. Keith tries to gauge the situation.

The boy seems to be old enough to have most of his adult teeth, but his voice still cracks when he calls for Mary. Keith would probably put him around middle school age, so he’ll be a bit hard to scare, Keith thinks. On top of that, he doesn’t even know _how_ he’s supposed to scare him. Does he have some sort of ghostly energy? Is it like the movies, where he can manipulate shit and make it move without touching it?

He scans the room, before focusing in on a shampoo bottle behind the boy in the shower. He imagines moving it, and it falls into the bathtub with a small _thud_. The boy startles enough that he laughs nervously, and Keith grins. This could be fun.

 

___________________________________________

 

Keith fucked up. He doesn’t know how, or when it got to be too much, but the boy ends up curled against the wall, begging for his life. He’s pretty sure that is going to count as doing psychological damage.

“I’m sorry,” Keith says, before cursing. The boy looks up at him, and his lower-lip trembles. He made him _cry_. “Shit. I’m not here to kill, I promise.”

“You’re not?” the boy whimpers, and it makes Keith’s heart ache.

He knows the fear of death well, had felt it flash white-hot through his body before he pulled the trigger. He can’t believe that he made someone else feel that way. Keith had never felt something so painful and adrenaline inducing in his life; he wouldn’t wish it on his worse enemy, let alone an innocent kid that just wanted to play a Halloween game.

Keith shakes his head, and says, “No, it’s my job to scare you, not kill you.”

The boy gives him a small smile, and it’s comforting.

“Mission accomplished,” he jokes, and Keith’s heart pulses again.

Keith frowns and looks around the room. It’s a huge mess, and he can hear his brother scolding him in the back of his mind. He concentrates, and in the blink of an eye everything looks untouched. The boy looks around the room, and the fear has been replaced with wonder.

“A bit too accomplished, I think,” Keith says, running a soothing hand down the boy’s trembling arm. “I’m sorry. It’s my first night on the job - which part was a bit overboard, do you think?”

The boy swallows harshly, and seems to consider his words before speaking.

“Well, if it’s your job to scare, I’d hold back on the whole mirror smashing thing. It’s potentially fatal.”

Keith winces, and makes a mental about no more mirror smashing. He hadn’t really thought about all the glass shards that had been in the carpet before he put it all back. He’s pretty sure making someone bleed out is heavily against the rules.

“Noted,” he says, standing up. “I’m sorry, again. I’ll be on my way now.”

He turns to the mirror, and with a gentle push on the glass, is on his way back inside of it. The boy catches his arm mid-way, and Keith looks back.

“What’s your name?” the boy asks, and it startles Keith.

 _Rule number two,_ he thinks, but, well, he’s already broken rule number one. Surely one more can’t hurt?

“Keith,” he says, careful to not use his last name. Loopholes.

The kid lets go of his arm.

“Not Mary?”

Keith can’t help himself from rolling his eyes. Did he _look_ like a Mary?

“No, not Mary. Do you know how many kids play Bloody Mary on a daily basis, let along on Halloween night? No one could handle all of this on their own.”

He’s careful to not let the kid know that Mary is, apparently, an evil witch that the kid doesn’t want to encounter. The boy stays silent, and Keith uses that as his escape. He thrusts himself through the mirror, and is surprised to see Thace standing in the darkness.

He’s frowning at him, and Keith prepares himself for a good reminder on the rules. He looks down at his feet, the standard “I fucked up” pose.

“What did I tell you about getting attached?” he demands, and Keith’s head snaps up.

“What?” he asks, and Thace pinches the bridge of his nose.

“You can’t come back, Keith,” Thace explains, “you felt sympathy for the kid, and it got you attached to him. You gotta be close to him now, or it’ll drain your energy. Have fun.”

He says it sarcastically, and Keith’s temper makes itself known. Before he can snap something back, though, Keith is forcefully thrust through the mirror again. His back slams against the bathroom wall, and he slides to his knees in a breathless, dazed heap.

“Son of bitch,” he wheezes.

 

 

_________________________________________

 

So, getting Ghostly Attached to someone is as easy as feeling a single emotion for a living person, Keith finds. He was dumb enough to feel sympathy for the boy - Lance McClain, he learned - when he was begging for his life, so now he gets to spend his afterlife attached to his hip, or he’ll feel significant energy drains.

He tested the limits of it one night, having nothing better to do since ghosts don’t sleep, and he made it the end of the street Lance lives on before feeling so physically ill that he rushed back to his bedroom. It’s not exactly _ideal_ since it leaves him with too much time to think. Keith had heard stories about people that attempted suicide and immediately regretted it, but he’d convinced himself that he wouldn’t.

God, had he been wrong. The guilt catches up to him at night, when Lance is fast asleep and can no longer be used as a distraction. Keith feels weird watching him sleep, so he plays the part of a miserable supernatural being, and sits in the windowsill, lamenting about his past life.

Keith had been miserable in life, he won’t deny that. He’d just always thought of death as an easy escape, but apparently death is just as miserable. Or Keith has finally hit the depressed stage of coming to terms with death. Whatever.

The day time isn’t as bad, but it had been like that when Keith was alive, too. The daytime brought so many distractions, and honestly, Keith could’ve picked a worse person to get Ghostly Attached to. Lance is lively, and funny and downright charming if he’s honest. He seems to hate silence as much Keith does, and he fills it by humming or constantly having YouTube videos running on his TV. Sometimes it’s funny stuff, sometimes it’s music.

Keith is deeply amused that the boy with bright blue eyes and a charming smile, listens to the same kind of music he does. Fall Out Boy seems to be his poison of choice; he can even play a few songs on the guitar.

Keith has a lot of time to assess his situation, but it’s so surreal that he’s not entirely sure that it ever sits in. He feels like his emotions have been thrown into a blender, and he can’t decipher one from another anymore. Confusion seems to be the biggest the one, but the more he questions everything the more confused he gets. The more confused he gets, the more angry he gets, and Keith had an entire lifetime to teach him that getting angry about not understanding doesn’t solve anything.

So, he’s dead. The legend of his town is true, and he fucked up his job of protecting people on his first go. He’s attached to a small Cuban boy with a huge heart, and he’ll never see his brother again. Keith has come to terms with his situation, he thinks. Maybe.

 

_____________________________________

 

Hearing the desperation in Lance’s voice when he calls to him, causes a physical ache in Keith’s bones. He wants to go to him. _God,_ he wants to go to him. Being a ghost is so lonely, he’d kill for some conversation. He can’t, though. Lance calls to him during the day, when Keith is the weakest.

Ghosts are afflicted with darkness, and the night. Keith has no ghostly energy during the day, and he’s too weak to push his way through the mirror. He’s strongest past midnight, he thrums with so much energy that it feels like it’ll spill out if he doesn’t concentrate on it. But the night is when Lance sleeps. They’re on two different schedules, living out two very different (after)lives, and it makes Keith sad.

One night, Lance calls for him so desperately that he cries. He’d told a few kids at school about how he’d seen the ‘mirror witch’ and they’d all laughed at him. Keith threw pieces of chalk at one particularly nasty boy in Lance’s science class, but that’s all that he’d been able to do.

He tries rubbing Lance’s back as he cries - he’s found him to be a very tactile person, and physical comfort is the best kind when dealing with a sad Lance - but all it does is make him shiver. Keith yanks his hand away like it’s burned him, and curls up miserably as he watches Lance cry.

 

___________________________________

 

Lance gets his first girlfriend at seventeen. She’s got curly, long blond hair and eyes just as blue as Lance’s. She rubs Keith the wrong way, always trying to talk Lance into having sex, and trying to convince him that his bisexualality is just a phase.

Keith watched Lance struggle with it for five years before coming to terms with it, and watching him question it again makes him angry. Though, to be fair, he’s get angry anytime the world isn’t 100% nice to Lance. He’s pretty sure he’s humanly attached now, but he can’t find it in himself to care. He’s been watching this kid for five years, after all.

His anger reaches a boiling point when Lance comes home from school, and immediately locks himself in his room. He’d heard his girlfriend call him a joke, and talking to her friends about she was going to break up with him. Lance isn’t someone to do something half-assed; he cares for this girl with his whole heart, and she’s never even given him half of hers.

Biting his lips, Keith lets himself slip through the floor. Fading through walls and floors is much quicker, a small perk of being dead, he supposes. He floats to the kitchen, and finds Lance’s favorite person: his mother.

Like Lance, she has big blue eyes and long flowing brown hair. She sings and dances when she cooks and cleans, and all four of her children have picked up the habit from her. The whole family is very musically blessed, Keith thinks.

Keith closes his eyes, and focuses on the airwaves. He pushes the sound of Lance’s soft cries into the kitchen, and Lance’s mother stops singing to herself immediately. Her eyebrows furrow in concern, and she quickly washes her hands of the onion juice before hurrying upstairs.

Keith floats back up, and sits on the chair at Lance’s desk. He curls his knees to his chest, as Lance’s mother enters the room. She spots him and coos softly.

“Lance, mi sol, what’s wrong?” she asks, walking to his bed.

“Mama,” Lance sniffs, reaching out to her.

She quickly scoops him up in her arms and they settle into the bed together. Lance tells her everything, and Keith feels triumphant when the anger he feels is reflected on her face.

Keith has always envied the relationship Lance has with his mother. He never went through the ‘I hate my parents’ phase, and never got embarrassed of his mother. Mrs. McClain is a second mother to anyone that enters her household, and Keith absolutely adores her. He adores Lance’s older sister too, who, unlike Lance’s older brother, never played the ‘No Lance Allowed’ game, where he picked a spot in the house and didn’t let Lance in. He’s okay now that he’s older, but it’s clear that Veronica and Lance are much closer than him and Luis.

Marco is an anomaly all together, some sort of immune system problem that makes him too sluggish and sleepy all the time to be mean to anyone. Lance protects him like Veronica had protected him when he was younger, so they’re a bit close too.

None of it is as close as Lance is to his mother though, and Keith smiles as she starts singing him a Spanish lullaby. Her voice is gentle, and beautiful, and it puts both Keith and Lance at ease. Yeah, Keith adores her.

 

________________________

 

Lance’s breakdown in his apartment is the final straw. Keith can’t stand the agony in Lance’s voice, and just sit around knowing that the person he’s in love with is feeling the worst pain of their life. Hell, Keith hurts so much that he can’t breathe, he’d adopted these people as a second family; he can’t begin to imagine how much Lance feels, it must be his own pain amped up by a thousand.

The thought alone is enough to make him gather what energy he can, and shove himself into the mirror. Sunlight be damned. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lance speaking Spanish is an excellent headcanon but I haven't taken Spanish since I was a Junior in high school, so it's uhhhh... been three years and I've forgotten everything but I'm not dumb enough to trust Google translate, so. Extremely basic Spanish it is. 
> 
> ALSO, sorry for the long wait, I tend to participate in a few Tumblr Ship Weeks during the summer, so this took a bit of a backseat to TodoDeku, ShinDeku and McGenji week stuff. My bad.


End file.
